Justin Gillis on connecting the (climate change) dots

There's an excellent and very insightful Q&A interview with Justin Gillis, the New York Times reporter who recently won Columbia University's 2011 Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, at the Columbia Journalism Review website.

Since I have complained previously about the Times' coverage of climate change (here, here, here, and probably other places as well), it's considerable comfort to know that Mr. Gillis has a largely similar view of what has been happening in the mainstream media on the issue. I'm really impressed with some of the things he has to say:

- "I started taking classes and the more I learned, the more I thought to myself, 'This is the biggest problem we have—bigger than global poverty. Why am I not working on it?'" (emphasis added)

- "One thing I’m seeing—and I see it in our own paper as well as many other news outlets—is that people are covering the crazy weather we’re having and, more often than not, dodging the subject of whether there’s any relationship to climate change. TV weathermen are dodging that subject. Print reporters are dodging the subject ... [I]t’s a bit of a scandal that there’s not enough connecting the dots for people." (emphasis added)

Hear, hear!

My enthusiasm is only tempered by a few things. First, Mr. Gillis essentially waves away a goof in one of his recent stories, which included a paragraph about "climate researchers who question the scientific consensus about global warming ..." and in the very next paragraph quoted Myron Ebell, who is described as a "climate skeptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute."  This unfortunate combination suggested that Mr. Ebell is a climate researcher, when in fact he is an economist--and an economist who works for a group that has run TV ads extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas associated with global warming.

Mr. Gillis's comment on this? "I suppose that in retrospect, given how much complaint there was, I wish I had made clear that Ebell is not a scientist, but an economist. I had quoted him many times before and know who he is, what he does, and what perspective he represents." But, of course, it's not enough that Mr. Gillis knows who Mr. Ebell is--that's essential information, bearing directly on Mr. Ebell's credibility, that should be shared with readers.

I noticed this reference when I read the story and was disturbed (actually, pissed would be more accurate) by it.  Joe Romm noticed it also, and wrote a post at ClimateProgress titled False Balance Lives at the New York Times, which perhaps accounts for the second thing that bothered me--Mr. Gillis taking a swing at Romm a bit later on in the CJR interview: "I think some people, like Joe Romm, would like us to send a bugler in a coat of mail around with the paper every morning playing taps and proclaiming that climate change is a problem."

Well, gosh, Mr. Gillis, if the media isn't going to do that job for us, who will?  As you have correctly said, it's the biggest problem we have, and opinion polls make it clear that the public has no idea of its seriousness.  I for one am really grateful for Joe and the folks at Skeptical Science who are keeping those of us concerned about global warming up to speed and doing battle daily with the incessant river of lies and distortions from those in denial about climate change.

Finally, my enthusiasm is restrained by the fact that the Times and most other papers continue to write about America's new-found abundance of fossil fuels with barely a whisper about global warming. I'll have more to say about this soon.

All of that being said, let me end on an up note--I appreciate Mr. Gillis and his efforts to bring more of a focus on climate change and its likely impacts, to one of the leading newspapers in America, and I wish him every success.  The work he's been doing at the Times is critical, and God knows, we need all the help we can get.

Connecting dots on weather & climate: local newspaper shows how it's done

After two stories in two days by national-level media dropped the ball on global warming, my local paper, the Valley News, came through yesterday. Kudos!

Here is the magical (dare I call it remarkable?) text from the story "So Far, Winter Is a Washout" by Aimee Caruso:

Chris Bouchard, a meteorologist at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vt., said it's fairly unusual to have no snow in December, especially because the snowfall is just a few inches below normal.

"What's weird about it is it's been very warm, so a lot of (the snow) has melted, resulting in our measly snowpack," Bouchard said.

Last month was the third warmest November on record in Vermont, with an average temperature of 41.2.  The warmest year was 1948, with an average temperature of 42.6.

It's also been an unusually wet year, Bouchard said.  As of yesterday morning, 51.14 inches of melted precipitation made it the wettest year since records started being kept in 1894 ...

It's hard to say why Vermont has had four of its wettest years on record in the past six years, he said, but possible explanations include a transitory weather pattern or "some link to climate change.

"Warmer and wetter are two trends you would expect here in the Northeast with a warming climate," Bouchard said.

There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?

By contrast, a lump of coal goes out to the New York Times, which carried a story of similar length on the same subject (lack of snow, warm weather) Dec. 23, but managed to avoid any mention of global warming even though it included the following text: "Week after maddening week of unusually balmy temperatures have made snowfall scant in New England ... "

And a slightly smaller lump to the Associated Press, with an entry also dated Dec. 23 and titled "With snow scarce, northern U.S. has brown Christmas."  The author, John Flesher, doesn't fail to ask the obvious question--is there a reason for this?--but rather than bring up the sticky wicket of global climate change, he opts instead for "La Nina, the cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that affects weather worldwide, has nudged the jet stream farther north. Air pressure over the northern Atlantic has steered storm systems away from the East Coast."

To be fair, climate science doesn't tell us a whole lot about snow--snowfalls may be much heavier due to the increased moisture content of the atmosphere, or they may be much lighter because they are replaced by rain, or the snow may melt because of warmer temperatures.  So that's a plausible reason for not bringing it up.

Still, the weather has clearly been odd--otherwise, there would be no reason for writing about it--and one factor has clearly been unusually warm temperatures.  Global warming "loads the [weather] dice," making warm spells more likely, as Mr. Bouchard noted, and it's my view that every feature story about unusual weather that dovetails with climate science should "connect the dots."

The New York Times does connect the dots sometimes--in its "Temperature Rising" series, which focuses explicitly on major issues relating to global warming, and, more interestingly, when its stories relate to politics.  Take, for example, this recent segment from a story titled "Climate Scientists Hampered in Study of 2011 Extremes," by Justin Gillis:

This year, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tried to push through a reorganization that would have provided better climate forecasts to businesses, citizens and local governments, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked it. The idea had originated in the Bush administration, was strongly endorsed by an outside review panel and would have cost no extra money. But the House Republicans, many of whom reject the overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes of global warming, labeled the plan an attempt by the Obama administration to start a “propaganda” arm on climate.

Note the bolded passages, which provide the extra factual context a reader needs to make, yes, judgments about what is happening.  Let's look at the same paragraph without the bolded parts:

This year, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tried to push through a reorganization that would have provided better climate forecasts to businesses, citizens and local governments, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked it, labeling the plan an attempt by the Obama administration to start a “propaganda” arm on climate.

The latter approach has far too frequently characterized the Times' approach to weather and climate coverage.  Congratulations to Mr. Gillis for "telling it like it is" on the news story of the century--the disruption of Earth's climate by human-caused emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

UPDATE: To get a sense of just how different climate reporting can be, see this example from today's edition of the Montreal Gazette: "Quebec on the verge of catastrophic climate change, expert [says]."

Related posts:

How the New York Times could cover global warming, Dec. 23, 2011
The New York Times and global warming (not): why?, Oct. 3, 2011